House near Phuthaditjhaba. QwaQwa. 1 May 1989 forms part of Goldblatt’s Structures series. Based on the idea that structures reflect the values of the people who build them, this series is a photographic exploration of the ways in which colonial and Apartheid values were expressed in the construction and deconstruction of structural landscapes. The images in this series - taken between 1964 and 1994 - consider the impact of built environments on landscapes and people.

Stretching over decades, David Goldblatt’s Structures is his longest, ongoing photographic series. In Goldblatt’s words he “attempted to look at South African structures not as architecture but as expressions of value” in the belief that “in the bricks, grit, concrete, wood, plastic, cardboard and corrugated iron of what we have built, there is much to be gleaned of our ethos.” With this in mind, Goldblatt has travelled across South Africa documenting structures, both ideological and physical during the apartheid regime and well into the democratic era.

“In the 1990s my anger dissipated. Apartheid was no more. There were things to probe and criticise, but the emphasis was different. Lyricism seemed not only permissible but possible. In the late ‘90s I became aware of colour as a particular quality of this place and its light that I wanted to explore. It seemed ‘thin’, yet intense. To achieve prints that would hold these qualities I would need to print in colour in a way that was similar to that which I had developed for my black and white work … Over the generations, the land has shaped us - I say us in the broadest sense, us South Africans. And we have shaped the land. It is almost impossible now to find a pristine landscape. The grass has been grazed to the point of being threadbare, crops come and go, roads traverse, fences divide, and mines penetrate and throw up scabs of their detritus. These and our structures are the marks of our presence. I am drawn by the intimacies of our association with this land.” David Goldblatt

Ezilalini (The country)

This story was motivated by an earlier project, 'I carry Her photo with Me', which is about the disappearance of my sister Ziyanda. As part of the project, I traced her foot- prints back to the Eastern Cape, exploring her earlier life in Tsomo and the surrounding area. This provided the opportunity to reconnect with my family, identity, and culture, engaging parts of myself and my history that I had not considered before, or perhaps had avoided thinking about. As I worked on the story about Ziyanda, I realized Tsomo has deep meaning to my family but also discovered the same for me personally.

This project is an exploration of a place I am deeply connected to but feel like I know very little about. It is a strange place for me and at times I feel like an outsider because of family dynamics and Ziyanda’s fraught history. Sometimes it’s like I’m digging a hole I’m afraid to look into. My family considers the Eastern Cape our ancestral home, but many of us live in urban centres.

My grandmother, who still lives in Tsomo, curses Johannesburg as a place that has swallowed her children. The need to make a living in the city has created deep fragmentation in families and communities across South Africa. This divide between rural and urban is linked to Apartheid-era spatial planning laws and has resulted in severe economic inequality, but has also caused fragmentation of identity. As a result many people living in cities do not consider those places “home”. Johannesburg, for example, is seen as a place of opportunity, a place where you can get a job or make your dreams come true. “Home” refers to the countryside. It is a place where your elders live; a spiritual place where you can always connect with your ancestors. It’s a holy land to some, a place where they can rejuvenate and restart.

This project explores the multiplicity of place and identity; it reflects on the lingering effects of Apartheid, but also the deep roots and connection I have to Ezilalini, “the country”.

I carry Her photo with Me

This project started when I found a family portrait with my sister Ziyanda’s face cut out. She was a secretive, rebellious and rough person and I was young when she left home. The day she disappeared she was chasing me and I got hit by a car on a major road in my community. After that I didn’t see her again until a decade later, when she came home, sick. She passed away soon afterwards. When she returned I was already a photographer and I knew we didn’t have a picture of her. One day I saw this beautiful light coming in through the window shining on her face. I lifted up the camera to catch the moment and she shot me an evil look and said: “Stop! If you take that picture I am going to kill you!” So I lowered my camera. I still wish I had taken the shot. Disappearances like my sister’s are not unique to my family; many families in South Africa have a long history of people disappearing, dating back to the Apartheid era and even earlier. But it is something that is not often talked about and has a serious impact on families and communities. This project is a way of trying to make sense of Ziyanda’s disappearance and the historical implications of this phenomenon in South African society. It is also connected to my other bodies of work examining social and familial fragmentation and poverty in South Africa, as well as the lasting and long-reaching impact of Apartheid and colonialism across all levels of society.

Ezilalini (The country)

This story was motivated by an earlier project, 'I carry Her photo with Me', which is about the disappearance of my sister Ziyanda. As part of the project, I traced her foot- prints back to the Eastern Cape, exploring her earlier life in Tsomo and the surrounding area. This provided the opportunity to reconnect with my family, identity, and culture, engaging parts of myself and my history that I had not considered before, or perhaps had avoided thinking about. As I worked on the story about Ziyanda, I realized Tsomo has deep meaning to my family but also discovered the same for me personally.

This project is an exploration of a place I am deeply connected to but feel like I know very little about. It is a strange place for me and at times I feel like an outsider because of family dynamics and Ziyanda’s fraught history. Sometimes it’s like I’m digging a hole I’m afraid to look into. My family considers the Eastern Cape our ancestral home, but many of us live in urban centres.

My grandmother, who still lives in Tsomo, curses Johannesburg as a place that has swallowed her children. The need to make a living in the city has created deep fragmentation in families and communities across South Africa. This divide between rural and urban is linked to Apartheid-era spatial planning laws and has resulted in severe economic inequality, but has also caused fragmentation of identity. As a result many people living in cities do not consider those places “home”. Johannesburg, for example, is seen as a place of opportunity, a place where you can get a job or make your dreams come true. “Home” refers to the countryside. It is a place where your elders live; a spiritual place where you can always connect with your ancestors. It’s a holy land to some, a place where they can rejuvenate and restart.

This project explores the multiplicity of place and identity; it reflects on the lingering effects of Apartheid, but also the deep roots and connection I have to Ezilalini, “the country”.

Ezilalini (The country)

This story was motivated by an earlier project, 'I carry Her photo with Me', which is about the disappearance of my sister Ziyanda. As part of the project, I traced her foot- prints back to the Eastern Cape, exploring her earlier life in Tsomo and the surrounding area. This provided the opportunity to reconnect with my family, identity, and culture, engaging parts of myself and my history that I had not considered before, or perhaps had avoided thinking about. As I worked on the story about Ziyanda, I realized Tsomo has deep meaning to my family but also discovered the same for me personally.

This project is an exploration of a place I am deeply connected to but feel like I know very little about. It is a strange place for me and at times I feel like an outsider because of family dynamics and Ziyanda’s fraught history. Sometimes it’s like I’m digging a hole I’m afraid to look into. My family considers the Eastern Cape our ancestral home, but many of us live in urban centres.

My grandmother, who still lives in Tsomo, curses Johannesburg as a place that has swallowed her children. The need to make a living in the city has created deep fragmentation in families and communities across South Africa. This divide between rural and urban is linked to Apartheid-era spatial planning laws and has resulted in severe economic inequality, but has also caused fragmentation of identity. As a result many people living in cities do not consider those places “home”. Johannesburg, for example, is seen as a place of opportunity, a place where you can get a job or make your dreams come true. “Home” refers to the countryside. It is a place where your elders live; a spiritual place where you can always connect with your ancestors. It’s a holy land to some, a place where they can rejuvenate and restart.

This project explores the multiplicity of place and identity; it reflects on the lingering effects of Apartheid, but also the deep roots and connection I have to Ezilalini, “the country”.

Ezilalini (The country)

This story was motivated by an earlier project, 'I carry Her photo with Me', which is about the disappearance of my sister Ziyanda. As part of the project, I traced her foot- prints back to the Eastern Cape, exploring her earlier life in Tsomo and the surrounding area. This provided the opportunity to reconnect with my family, identity, and culture, engaging parts of myself and my history that I had not considered before, or perhaps had avoided thinking about. As I worked on the story about Ziyanda, I realized Tsomo has deep meaning to my family but also discovered the same for me personally.

This project is an exploration of a place I am deeply connected to but feel like I know very little about. It is a strange place for me and at times I feel like an outsider because of family dynamics and Ziyanda’s fraught history. Sometimes it’s like I’m digging a hole I’m afraid to look into. My family considers the Eastern Cape our ancestral home, but many of us live in urban centres.

My grandmother, who still lives in Tsomo, curses Johannesburg as a place that has swallowed her children. The need to make a living in the city has created deep fragmentation in families and communities across South Africa. This divide between rural and urban is linked to Apartheid-era spatial planning laws and has resulted in severe economic inequality, but has also caused fragmentation of identity. As a result many people living in cities do not consider those places “home”. Johannesburg, for example, is seen as a place of opportunity, a place where you can get a job or make your dreams come true. “Home” refers to the countryside. It is a place where your elders live; a spiritual place where you can always connect with your ancestors. It’s a holy land to some, a place where they can rejuvenate and restart.

This project explores the multiplicity of place and identity; it reflects on the lingering effects of Apartheid, but also the deep roots and connection I have to Ezilalini, “the country”.